


Escape

by AwesomeMango7



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Aged-Up Morty Smith, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Arguing, C137cest, Child Abuse (from Beth?? Kind of?? Its verbal abuse), Child Neglect, Cuddles, Eventual kissing, Everyone needs to get their shit together, Fluff and Angst, Incest, It Gets Better, Loneliness, M/M, Maybe Smut?? If I feel like it..., Morty feels alone, Morty is 16, Morty needs Rick, Only sad at the start, Rick Cares, Rick needs Morty, Running Away, Sad, Yelling, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 03:38:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomeMango7/pseuds/AwesomeMango7
Summary: He was a freaking sixteen-year-old kid, going on some aimless journey into the unknown. Maybe he should have developed more of a plan before just bolting for the door at 2 AM, planning on never turning back. But he made up his mind to fucking leave, so he was gonna stick with it. Things were starting to get too harry back at home. His dad was out of the picture at this point, his mom was a verbally abusive alcoholic, and his older sister was never home; Always out with her friends or at parties.And Rick..? Rick had become... distant.(Morty runs away, and Rick comes to get him.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this shit down on paper for months. Thought I should post it.

His backpack was super heavy. And for some reason, it was only occurring to the withered teen  _now_ that he probably shouldn't have packed as much as he had. If he was going to be traveling for  _only God knows how long_ , he should have packed less so it would be easier to carry. Morty paused in his steps, swaying slightly where he stood. He noticed a bench up beside one of the storefronts, and with a heavy sigh of relief, he took a few more shaky steps forward before collapsing onto it and slinging backpack off to the side. He pushed his brown, curly hair back away from his sweaty forehead, and slouched. He hadn't showered in days, and he was starting to feel really gross. He'd stayed in an inn a few days back, but he didn't dare risk staying for any longer than one night. It was good for a decent night of rest, and a hot shower but It would have cost too much money for him to stay any longer. He needed to have money for food  _somehow._

As of right now, Morty was in the middle of some city he didn't know the name of. He ran away from home with nothing but the clothes on his back, whatever he could carry in his largest working backpack, and a few thousand dollars that he'd been saving up for the past several years. He had determinedly saved it up, not spending a penny of his savings since he was eleven. He gathered all that money mostly from his allowance, but at least 25% of it with him as a result of him deciding to steal right before he ran away. The plan was originally to save it up for college if the chance ever arose, but, well... things change, and as it turns out, he was using it to get as far away from home as possible. 

He had simply packed up and left in the middle of the night, hopping on several public buses, and eventually (well after the sun had come up) he had fallen asleep on one of them. All he knew was that he woke up sometime in the afternoon, and he was in some city. He didn't know what city it was because, well, for one thing: he didn't care as long as it wasn't home, and two: he just didn't like the idea of asking anyone. Maybe he'd see a sign, or overhear someone talking about it. Then he'd know. 

It had been five, going on six, days since he'd left, and Morty was feeling conflicted on whether he felt more good or bad about the whole situation. He felt good because  _yay!_ He managed to escape the hell he called his life. It felt like the one thing in his life that he actually got to control, and he made a decision that was changing and curving everything. It had been so long since he'd been able to actually breathe like this-- to feel free, and somewhat happy about his life. It was a brand new adventure, and he was determined to find his way. But he also felt  _bad,_ because of in spite of himself, he missed a certain, probably insane, blue-haired scientist. And he felt so...  _ugh,_ lonely without any friends or family.

He was a freaking sixteen-year-old  _kid,_ going on some aimless journey into the unknown. Maybe he should have developed more of a plan before just bolting for the door at 2 AM, planning on never turning back. But he made up his mind to fucking leave, so he was gonna stick with it. Things were starting to get too harry back at home. His dad was out of the picture at this point, his mom was a verbally abusive alcoholic, and his older sister was never home; Always out with her friends or at parties.

And Rick..? Rick had become...  _distant._ He kept Morty out of the garage, claiming that the teen was  _"T-too much of a dis-distraction, Mo-BUUrrRRpp-Morty!"_ He stopped trying to initiate conversations with him, and sometimes flat-out avoided talking with him. There were no more late nights skimming through mind-numbing interdimensional TV channels together, and he stopped spontaneously pulling him from school. Heck, even the  _adventures_ seemed to halt. A few times Morty even caught Rick going on adventures  _WITHOUT_ him. He felt like he was being dumped by his best friend-- like he was being sent a silent message that Rick didn't think he was cool enough to hang with him anymore. He didn't know what had gone wrong between them, or what he'd done to drive Rick away like this. It was practically driving him nuts, and he couldn't figure out  _why_ Rick had started to avoid him.

Eventually, Morty grew fed up with Rick's fucking bullshit, and he confronted him one day. Rick had instantly denied it, which caused a lot of yelling and screaming from both ends of the garage, where Morty had cornered him. He kept asking,  _"Why, R-Rick?! Why don't you like me anymore?!"_ but he didn't get any answers past denial and excuses. It infuriated him and he wanted to punch Rick in the face  _so_ badly. The argument abruptly ended when Morty furiously stormed out of the garage, slamming the door as hard as he fucking could.

As the anger faded, and he slid down the frame of his bedroom door, he'd felt a wave of nausea rush over him. He was crushed, defeated, and entirely alone. That's when he decided to leave.

His family was broken, yet continued to unravel further-- Like beating a horse that's already dead. He had tried to hold everyone together in the beginning... but in the end, it had been one of his many fruitless attempts in life. When trying to help, or empathize, it was always reflected.

 

_"You're too young to understand, Morty."_

 

_"Shut the f-fuck up, Morty!"_

 

 

_"This isn't your problem, back off."_

 

_"Morty, honey, I'm afraid you won't be able to help. Someone of your age can't understand this type of thing."_

 

The thing about this though, was that Morty actually could,  _in fact,_  understand _everything_ that was going on. He might have actually understood it better than anyone else did. What a curse it was to be the youngest of the family, where everyone thinks of you as some kind of innocent ignorant little kid. I mean, Christ, he's sixteen, and even he'll admit that he's still a kid in a lot of ways, but he's still definitely old enough to be able to understand all the shit going on with his family. He understood the conflict behind Beth and Jerry's marriage, even when it became clear that the two of them couldn't find the root of it all. He understood it when they inevitably got a divorce. He understood when Jerry stopped showing up for dinner once a week to see them. He understood when his mom's small drinking habit turned into alcoholism. He could even understand why Summer started to vanish for days on end every chance she got.

However, there was only ever one thing he couldn't understand, which was why Rick had started to avoid him like the plague. It really was what sent him over the edge. When the family had first started to fall apart, Rick and Morty's friendship had held strong. They had never been closer, actually.

But it didn't take long before everything that had been going on between them had suddenly stopped. The adventures, the conversations, TV together on the couch.  _Everything!_ It was almost maddening how quickly Rick burned his end of the bridge.

Left with no one, Morty had become so alone. So he figured,  _why stay when there was no one there who would care if he just so happened to disappear?_

He hardly even saw his family during the couple of months before he left. His schedule consisted of: wake up; get dressed; eat breakfast alone; go to school; eat lunch alone; go home; shower; eat dinner alone; do homework; mess around in his room; get into pj's; and sleep. And then the cycle would repeat the next day. And the next. And the next, and the next, and so on and so on. Sometimes he'd pass Summer in the upstairs hallway whenever she was actually home, or he'd pass Rick as he entered the house from the garage (the old man would always be quick to kick him out). On a few occasions, he'd even encountered his mother in the kitchen on late nights with a flushed face and a bottle of red wine clutched tightly in her shaking hands. Sometimes, when his mother was especally drunk, she would mutter something to Morty about his "shitty intelligence." She would call him worthless, and say that he was turning out to be more like Jerry every day--and she didn't mean that last part in a good way. Morty would simply take the verbal abuse, and guide his mom wordlessly to bed. It was pretty much the only things she ever said to him nowadays...

Morty wouldn't have been surprised if they still haven't noticed his absence. "I-I'm better off without them..." He told himself quietly, leaning back against the bench, the wood uncomfortably digging into his back. He wanted that statement to be true, so he was gonna make it happen. At home, the only things he had to go back to were his drunken mother, his absent sister and father, and a grandfather who no longer wanted anything to do with him. He was just as alone here as he was at home.

Honestly, Morty would have stayed if he'd had at least one person to stay for. That would have been enough for him... But he didn't have anyone at all at this point, did he?

Morty huffed out a frustrated breath. He was letting his thoughts get to him again, goddamnit! He had to keep moving. The goal was to get as far away from home as possible. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder again, Morty stood and re-entered the flow of people walking down the sidewalk. The farther from home the better. 

He had taken maybe... hmm, five steps? Maybe six? when he froze dead where he stood, eyes widening to the size of saucers as he stared ahead at the sight a few feet in front of him. The static shifted in the air as a whirling green vortex, that Morty had come for familiarize as a  _portal,_ ripped a hole in space and time  _right in front of him._

Some of the people that had been near during this bizarre occurrence started to shriek in terror, running away like their lives depended on it (Not  _everyone_ knows what a portal is). Other simply froze where they stood, dropping whatever they had been holding in their hands, and staring with opened mouths. Morty had been among the few to freeze up, but not for the same reasons as everyone else, obviously. 

As Morty had expected, a man with wild electric blue hair in a pristine white lab coat stepped out of the green rip in space. His crystal blue eye locked with Morty's emerald green ones as the portal vanished into thin air behind him.

 


	2. Why is it a coffee shop though??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't wanna spoil it. If you're reading the second chapter, I'm assuming you already want to know what happens next. If I put a summary, that would only spoil it. So yeah, no summary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Chapter two! Definitely longer than the last chapter, whew. Have fun reading.

Morty's heart was pounding rapidly in his chest-- He only ever ran this fast when he was running away from some alien monster that was after him. And he kind of felt like maybe there  _was._ All that work to escape, and run away and Rick  _still_ managed to somehow find him. Part of himself asked why he was running from Rick, so he reminded himself that Rick had stopped being his friend months ago. He fucking ditched him, and now all of a sudden he was trying to drag Morty back? No, he wasn't gonna let that happen so easily. He was gonna fight back, even though the odds weren't exactly in his favor.

The teen danced around people as he ran, not crashing into anyone at all. It was a skill he'd picked up from several years of adventuring. The only problem was that Rick had been practicing for far longer than he had, and was quite agile for an old man. He was catching up faster than Morty could get away. The only reason he was ahead of him in the first place was because he got a head-start. Weaving his way through the crowd, he tried to lose Rick by quickly by dipping into an alleyway between two buildings. However, before he could really register what the hell happened, he was being knocked ungracefully to the ground.

Rick had fucking  _tackled_ him like some sort of football player. He was momentarily stunned, and there was a sharp pain that radiated from his left elbow, but he quickly snapped back into action. He fought back, throwing blind punches and kicking his legs out as he tried to free himself from Rick's grasp. Finally, after a few long moments of struggling, Morty managed to land a solid punch to Rick's jaw. He felt a jolt of satisfaction run up his spine, but it quickly vanished the second Rick glared down at him as a result. "Fu-MORTY!" Rick yelled into his face, firmly grabbing his arms and pinning them down so that the boy was immobile. "CHILL OUT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" 

Morty turned his head to the side, refusing to meet Rick's eyes. He continued to struggle slightly, squirming and twisting his arms around in his grasp. "Fuck off, Rick..." He muttered quietly.

"Why'd you freakin' run?!" Rick's voice was still loud enough to be considered a yell, but at least he wasn't being as loud as he was a moment ago. "I-I-I'm trying to take--to take you  _home,_ dumbass!"

"Maybe I don't  _want_ to go home." He was actually kind of surprised that Rick was going the lengths he was right now to apparently 'bring him home,' but it didn't change how utterly bitter he was right now. He also wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, why no one was trying to help him, but then he realized that they were behind a dumpster, out of sight. 

"What do you mean,  _'Maybe I don't want to go home?!'"_ Rick barked at him. He looked absolutely livid, and his grasp on Morty's arms tightened as he spoke. " Would-would you rather l-bUUuurrRrp-live like a fuckin' hobo, sleeping in boxes, and begging for money from strangers?!" 

Morty growled, struggling more underneath Rick. For someone so skinny and boney, Rick was pretty darn heavy. Or maybe it just had to do with the fact that Morty was a scrawny, prepubescent teenage boy.

Rick heaved an annoyed sigh at Morty's silence and started to pull himself and Morty up off the dirty ground of the alleyway. Once on their feet, however, he kept an almost bruising grip on Morty's upper arm in order to prevent him from running off. Morty tugged at his arm uselessly, knowing that he wouldn't actually be able to forcefully free himself. "L-let me _go,_ Rick!" He demanded sternly, glaring daggers at the scientist.

Rick hummed for a moment, grabbing his chin with his free hand, mock-thinking about an answer. They both already knew the answer was 'no'. "Uh, not gonna happen, buddy." He started to drag Morty out of the alleyway, his vice-grip not faltering in the slightest. 

Morty, begrudgingly of course, let Rick drag him around like a ragdoll. He'd tried to pull himself free from Rick's grasp before on past adventures when he was being particularly complicated, but he'd always ended up unsuccessful. "W-where the hell are we going, Rick?!" Morty wondered angrily as Rick pulled him along. If they were heading home, Rick would have portal-ed them. But obviously that wasn't happening, so he had no idea what Rick was thinking. 

The scientist didn't even glance back at him, leaving the teenager to pout in his cluelessness. People glanced their way as they speed-walked down the street. Morty guessed it was probably because he looked like a defiant child, and Rick looked like he was fed up with his shit. Ironically, it was actually the other way around. Well, sorta. Maybe Rick was mad at him for running away. But Morty had been angry first, and Rick didn't have the fucking right to be angry in the first place. 

They had been walking for about ten minutes in a tense silence before Rick finally stopped. He looked up at one of the signs hanging above the storefronts, and read it. It said,  _ **"Kylee's Café"**_ in fancy cursive lettering. He pulled Morty along with him inside, pushing open the glass doors swiftly and nearly knocking it into a girl with fiery red hair and a yellow raincoat. She angrily cursed Rick out, saying something about watching where he was going, but he ignored it as he continued on his mission, whatever that mission might be. Instantly, Morty could sense the hipster-like vibe inside the Café. It seemed that vibe would always resonate within every coffee shop in existence. It made him feel slightly out of place.

Morty felt out of place in a lot of places... he didn't really fit in much with anyone. He used to think that he fit in with Rick, and he weirdly felt in more in place while in other dimensions or in space, rather than on Earth. He frowned at that thought, despite how honest and true it was. He didn't feel like he fit in anywhere nowadays...

They arrived at a booth, and Rick shoved him down into it, giving the teen a pointed glare. " _Stay."_ He instructed sternly as if Morty were some sort of dog.

"And why would I want to do that, huh?" Morty crossed his arms over his chest, returning his very own pointed look back at him. He wasn't actually going to leave, he just wanted to get back at Rick. He wanted to make things complicated, and he wanted to piss Rick off. And it seemed to work because Rick's glare intensified, and his posture became rigid and tense as if he was actively trying not to smack Morty in the face right then and there. It caused him to sink down in his seat a little bit, suddenly feeling kind of small as his grandfather towered over him imposingly. 

"Becuase I can just track your fuckin' brainwaves if you try to run, and I'll just bring you b-back," He ground out harshly through clenched teeth. "And  _trust me,_ you-you-you  _won't_ be able to outlast me. I-I-I will do it over and over again all year round if I have to, s-so don't you even  _dare_ think about running off while I'm gone, you little shit." As Morty sunk further down into his seat, Rick turned on his heels and left. 

He had half a mind to fucking run again purely just to spite the man, but Rick was right. His grandpa could be a persistent, stubborn asshole when he wanted to be, and Morty didn't wanna deal with that shit. So, he just sat in his seat, fuming and radiating anger. Escaping his life really was impossible, wasn't it? (Rick would make sure of that...)  He had just wanted to get away from it all... he wanted to find somewhere that he was actually wanted. But he couldn't do that if Rick was just going to drag him back. Why the hell  _was_ Rick dragging him back at all? It didn't make any sense! Why go for months avoiding someone, just to drag them back home when they left?

When Rick returned, he had two coffees and two jelly-filled powdered doughnuts (It was Morty's favorite kind of doughnut, but he decided to ignore that fact in favor of remaining pissed at Rick). He placed them down on the table and then slid into the other end of the booth, directly in front of Morty. 

"W-what even  _is_ this, Rick??" Morty glared at him from across the table, not moving to grab what was supposedly his food. 

" _Coffee_ and  _doughnuts,_ Morty." Rick sarcastically responded, sipping his coffee. He seemed repulsed with the flavor of his drink, a grimace forming on his face. 

"No!" Morty threw his hands up into the air slightly, gesturing around the room. "I mean--just-- _ugh!_ Why are we  _here??_ "

"We're here,  _Morty,"_ Rick glared, un-capping his coffee and pouring some of its contents into a potted plant that was right behind them. "Because I want some fucking  _coffee_ and some fucking  _doughnuts,_ _Morty._ " He took his flask out of his lab coat pocket and poured some of it into his coffee, refilling it to the brim. "I-I-I haven't slept for  _t-two fucking d-days_ because I had to invent a damn t-tracking device that could hone in on your brainwave pattern and tell m-me your exact location." He put the cap back on his coffee cup and took a sip, this time looking more content with the flavor. 

"Well,  _excuse_ me for being  _such_ an inconvenience. I didn't f-fucking ask you to come find me, _Rick_." Morty seethed, once again slouching in his seat. "You  _do_ get the point in running away, right?" He ran away to  _escape,_ not because he wanted Rick to come find him. 

"Usually it's for attention, Morty," Rick stated plainly, biting into his doughnut. He seemed more focused on it than he was on Morty. "So here I am, y-you fucking  _drama queen._ " 

Morty felt his anger spike up into the clouds. Rick didn't fucking get it at all. He clenched his fists under the table, eyes alight with fire. "It's NOT for attention, you _ass!_ " The only reason he wasn't screaming as loud as he could was because he didn't want to make a scene in front of all the people around them. Still, the conversation  _did_ cause some people to flash them weird looks. "Everything was falling apart, Rick! Summer and dad are never there anymore, mom's always drunk or at work, and  _you!_ " He pointed an accusing finger at him from across the table, and Rick's brow rose high on his forehead. He nearly dropped his doughnut. " _You_ fucking abandoned me altogether! It-It-It's been  _months_ since we've even gone on an adventure! You just-- you closed yourself off from me completely, and-and-and the last time I tried to talk to you about this, you  _denied_ it! I wanted to leave,  _Rick,_ because I had no reason to stay!" He let out a low growl before continuing, seeming to get more and more frustrated as he went on. "And  _now_ you decide to come get me?  _Really?!_ You seemed to have no problem avoiding me for months without end, but when I run away, you finally want to talk to me again?!  _Fuck you,_ Rick..." 

"Well, what the hell was I  _supposed_ to do then?!" Rick argued back, his brow lowering back down as he got all defensive. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and the action didn't go unnoticed by Morty. "Should I have j-just, oh,  _I don't know,_ left you to fend for yourself out on the str-uUUrRRrp-eets?!"

"That's  _exactly_ what you were supposed to do!" Morty scowled. "It's not like it matters to  _you_ whether I'm at home or on the streets, 'cause apparently you don't even need my brainwaves anymore! You seem just  _fine_ going on adventures without them!" He threw his hands up in exasperation as he spoke, more people giving them looks as their argument heated up. 

Rick's eyes flickered with an emotion Morty couldn't place before they hardened again. "Oh, trust me, it's been a  _huge_ weight off my shoulders not having to drag your skinny ass everywhere!"

"THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU COME FIND ME?!" Morty shot up, shaking the whole table in the process and nearly spilling both of their coffees. It was Morty's turn to look absolutely  _livid._ First, Rick had pretty much ditched him.  _Then,_ he started going on adventures  _WITHOUT_ him. And last? He came to find him, only to throw it all back in his face by talking about how convenient it was when he didn't have to lug him around anymore. How fucking counter-productive  _is_ that? It's like Rick went through all that fucking bullshit just to poke fun at his most sensitive emotions. Morty truly and honestly cares about and loves his grandfather, as most grandkids do. But that doesn't make him fucking  _blind_ to how Rick is. He knows that Rick is an arrogant, cold, terrible, emotionless husk of bitterness, who has so much dark in his heart that there isn't room for much more than _L_ _ady Science herself._ He should have known that Rick would pull something cruel like this. 

Rick didn't have an answer to Morty's question. He seemed as if he did for a moment, opening his mouth to speak-- But, since he didn't know what the hell he was supposed to say, he just awkwardly gaped for a moment. For once, Rick Sanchez was _speechless._

Taking Rick's silence in the worst possible way, all the tension in Morty's posture and gaze vanished, and his anger morphed into disappointment.  _Rick only came to find him because he needed someone to mock._ "That's what I thought." He said quietly. Then his expression changed into something more serious as if he were doing a business exchange rather than talking to his grandpa. "Just go home, Rick." He said. "Goodbye..."

Morty had an irrational fear in the back of his mind that this was the end for them. After this, 'Rick and Morty, a hundred years' was no more. Their friendship was over, and his heart was breaking inside of him. But there wasn't anything he could do about it at this point. _Rick. Didn't. Care._ And so he simply slid out of the booth and started making his way to the exit. But he didn't make it very far before there was a hand grabbing his arm. 

"Morty, w-wait." Rick pleaded, and Morty could have sworn he sounded kind of desperate- something Rick _never_ was. "C-C'mon, it's nearly been a week. Just come home already." 

Morty whirled around to face him. "And what  _exactly_ would I be coming home to?" He easily yanked his arm out of Rick's grasp, taking advantage of how loose his hold had been. "L-Let me guess, more lonely morning eating breakfast before school? Or perhaps the lonely dinners? Oh! Maybe I'll r-return so that mom can bitch at me for being  _so_ much like dad some more. And I guess I'll get to see my big sister too, who I could have _sworn_ was never home anyway. And best yet," Morty paused, leaning forward just ever so slightly so he could better get his point across."I-I'll get to see my _grandfather,_ who, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't want to talk to me until  _I've already decided to leave._ " His voice broke on the last syllable, showing all of his broken emotions out on display. 

"Y-You don't mean that Morty," Rick stated it as a fact, but his voice held an uncertain tone, and his eyes looked pleading in a way that betrayed him and gave away the fact that Rick was _scared._ Morty decided to believe that he was just imagining it. _Rick. Didn't. Care._  

"Oh, for the love of-" He balled his hands into fists as a way to stop them from shaking. "...You don't think I have the balls to actually stay away, do you?" 

Several emotions passed over Rick's face before it settled into a half-hearted glare. "The opposite, a-actually." He said, rolling his eyes. "Honestly Morty, I thought you were gonna come back for the first couple days, but y-y-you didn't, so I came to get you."

"What w-was even the point of that, Rick?" The teen crossed his arms, almost like he was protecting himself. But he covered it by glaring back. "I-I'm just as fucking _useless_ out here as I was at home!"

"That's not true-"

"Yes, it is!" Morty snapped. So what, now Rick was trying to make him _feel better?_ He wouldn't fall for that bullshit. He was starting to get fed up with Rick _pretending_ to try. "You don't even need me anymore! _No one_ does. So will you just let me fucking _go_ already?!"

Suddenly, Rick lurched forward, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Stop it, Morty!" He shook him. "Y-y-you're not useless, a-a-and I _need_ you. I need so much, okay?! You have no idea-- I need you _so_ much." He was speaking with more emotion than Morty had ever heard from him before. "I-I..." He started to tear up, his eyes glossing over. " _I'm sorry,_ Morty."

His words were enough to get Morty to shut up because he had _never_ expected those words to _ever_ come out of Rick's mouth. Morty was speechless this time as he stared at Rick in shock. It just wasn't like him to apologize, even if he was faking one. 

"I-I'm sorry I pushed y-you away, okay? I know you tried to fix it. Y-you-you tried starting conversations, you offered to watch TV with me, and every s-so often y-you'd subtly suggest adventures. You tried... _everything._ " The old man had stopped shaking him, but his grasp on his shoulders remained the same, holding on to him as if he'd _die_ if he let go. He looked directly at Morty with his full attention, holding his gaze even as his eyes turned glassy with unshed tears, and he showed emotions that he previously would have never allowed anyone to see. "Hell kid, you even s-straight up confronted me, and I still ignored it. You had every right in the universe to do that, but I-I just kept pushing you away, further and further... and shouldn't have. But I did, and I'm sorry, Morty. I'm so,  _so_ sorry."

Morty just stared at him as his eyes grew just as glossy and watery as Rick's were. " _W-why,_ Rick?" He whispered. "Why'd you push me away? wh... why'd you come and find me?"

Instead of answering, Rick did something unexpected. He leaned forward, his head crashing into Morty's shoulder. It caused Morty to flinch just slightly, and he stumbled a bit because he had to shift his balance. Rick was still way taller than him, even after several years of growth spurts, so had to reposition himself to make sure they both wouldn't topple to the ground. 

"What the- R-Rick? Are you okay?" Morty found himself asking almost reflexively. He had never seen Rick act in such a way before. What made it even weirder, however, was the fact that he was openly showing affection and weakness wideout in the open-- They were in a _public_ place, in the middle of a coffee shop. Not that Morty was paying much attention to the weird stares they were getting passed the point of just being aware of it. He just found the situation to be... extraordinarily weird. His anger was put to the side temporarily as he pulled Rick back so he could look him in the eyes. Unfortunately, Rick wouldn't return the favor and refused to make eye-contact even as Morty actively tried to catch his attention. "Rick? What's wrong? Are you okay??" He asked again, concern lacing his voice. 

"No..." Rick whispered, shrugging Morty's hands off of his arms. "Please, M-Morty, just come home... It's hell without you..."

The teen's expression hardened once again, but he couldn't do anything about the tears that were still waiting to fall from his eyes. "If it was hell without me, you wouldn't have started to avoid me." He frowned, the words  _'You're lying'_ being left unsaid, but still heard. 

Rick finally looked at him again, a millisecond-long flash of fear lighting up in his eyes. _He was hiding something._ "I had my reasons for doing that." 

"Then what were they, Rick?" 

Rick squeezed his eyes shut, and Morty saw him shiver. He looked... Uncomfortable...? "Can we _not_ talk about it here?"

Morty's brows knit together in confusion before his eyes scanned the room. About half the people in the coffee shop were staring at them as if they were putting on some kind of play. That's probably why Rick was uncomfortable, and for some reason it made Morty feel more inclined to hear him out. He was still angry, but Rick was really trying hard. It meant a lot to him... "Fine," he said, making up a plan in his head.  "But if you don't tell me the reasons why then I'll leave again. And then we'll see who can outlast the other." 

With that, Morty grabbed his shit, _including_  the coffee and doughnut Rick had bought for him, and left with his grandfather following a few feet behind. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No worries, more chapters are coming soon. Chill. Tell me what you guys think in the comments, I'm open to criticism and advice. I hope you guys liked it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! More chapters are coming soon!


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